The ubiquitous remote control, often a multitude of them, has found its way onto virtually every coffee table in the television viewing rooms throughout the world. Few television viewers have not experienced the frustration of trying to perform even a simple command, such as turning on the television and watching a pre-recorded movie, only to be thwarted because he or she cannot figure out which button or buttons to press on which remote control units.
In an attempt to address the proliferation of multiple remote controls, many companies offer a universal remote control that is able to operate a variety of different audio-video components. These remote controls, of necessity, feature a panoply of buttons, many of them having dual functions, in order to control the principal functions of all devices in the user""s multimedia setup.
While the conventional universal remote control may eliminate the need for having multiple remote control units on the coffee table, it does little to simplify the user""s interaction with his or her audio-video or multimedia system. On the contrary most universal remote control units are so complex that they actually impede the user""s ability to control the equipment.
The present invention tackles this problem through speech technology recognition and sophisticated natural language parsing components, that allows the user to simply speak into the remote control unit and have his or her commands carried out. While the spoken commands can be simple commands such as xe2x80x9cPlay VCRxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cRecord Channel 6xe2x80x9d, the natural language parser offers far more complex commands than this. For example, the user could speak: xe2x80x9cShow me a funny movie starring Marilyn Monroe.xe2x80x9d Using the speech recognition and parser components, the system will search through an electronic program guide or movie database and can respond to the user (for instance) that xe2x80x9cSome Like It Hotxe2x80x9d will be playing next Friday. The user could then, for example, instruct the system to record that movie when it comes on.
Recording commands need not be limited to the entire movie or program. Rather, the user could enter a command such as: xe2x80x9cRecord the last five minutes of tonight""s Toronto-Los Angeles baseball game.xe2x80x9d Again, the speech recognition and parser components convert this complex command into a sequence of actions that cause the recording device in the user""s system to make the requested recording at the appropriate time.
The remote control of the invention can be constructed as a self-contained unit having all of the parser and speech recognition components on board, or it may be manufactured in multiple components, allowing some of the more complex computational operations to be performed by a processor located in a television set, set top box, or auxiliary multimedia control unit. In the latter case, the hand-held remote and the remote command unit communicate with each other by wireless transmission. Preferably, the hand-held remote control unit includes an infrared port through which the remote control can interact with older equipment in the user""s multimedia setup. Thus the remote control of the invention even allows sophisticated natural language speech commands to be given to those older audio-video components.
For a more complete understanding of the invention, its objects and advantages, refer to the following specification and to the accompanying drawings.